BEING-IN-TUNE CAREGIVING

The practice of providing developmentally supportive caregiving is fam iliar to nurses but often is not practiced until after the infant's st abilization in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). The study repo rted here explored the constructs that describe the characteristics of physiologically stable extremely low-birthweight infants and the proc ess of caregiving; to these infants. A purposive sample of 20 experien ced nurses in a level III NICU was selected. Two separate constructs e merged: individually defined stability and being-in-tune caregiving.